I was recently linked to this list of crazy business cards and loved some of them. Though scientific business cards (when people even have them!) are pretty standard and profesh, I can imagine that scientists and engineers could come up with some pretty amazing ideas. Despite the waning popularity of 'giving someone your card', many people think that they are here to stay. In 2015, the Economist published, "...exchanging business cards still seems to be an excellent way to initiate a lasting relationship. The ritual swapping of paper rectangles may be old-fashioned but on it will go."

​So, what would you do if given the opportunity to design your own card? Keep it standard but stylish (MOO is great) or go total DIY? Here are some starter ideas!​

via labhomepage

via medGadget

via creativebloq

via walyou

via theamericangenius

And, although made for a florist (I can't claim any skills in this area...), I want this card!​

This interview with Paula Brown Stafford will be published in two parts, the first focusing on her career development and the second focusing on the interaction between her work and home life. Throughout the interview she discusses the role of women in business and some of her tips for success. Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in interviews on our site are not necessarily the views of Beta Pleated Chic.

​​Paula Brown Stafford is the President of Clinical Development at Quintiles, a Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest contract research organization. She is also my sister-in-law. I have always known Paula as she is at home – a true southern lady with a sharp tongue and her priorities in order. At family gatherings she’s noted for her great taste in wine, beautiful voice (ex wedding singer), and flat foot dancing. Although I had always known that Paula had a big, important job, it wasn’t until I became a bit older and interested in my own career that I thought to ask her more about it.

Paula has been with Quintiles from its beginnings, and is part of the executive team that has helped develop or commercialize all of the top-100, best-selling drugs on the market in 2013. In addition to her role with Quintiles she is a member of the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium Board of Directors and sits on the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Advisory Board. In 2012 FierceBiotech named her one of the 10 top women in biotech. Her accolades go on, but in this interview I hope to provide a glimpse of the woman behind the desk and how she pulls it all off.

We met for lunch at the company headquarters in August, when I had just heard news of her plan to leave the company. I asked for Paula Stafford at reception, and was promptly corrected: “It’s Paula Brown Stafford – you can’t just call her Paula Stafford!” When I find her in her office, she is leaning back in her chair and chatting quietly on the phone to her husband, and my brother, Greg. She’s wearing a light blue paisley skirt and Jack Rogers sandals, and as we pop down to the cafeteria to grab some lunch, I can’t help but feel like I’m following a celebrity. She seems to know everyone in the building and as we wait in line for our food, there’s a constant stream of people dropping by to say hi or ask a question. We’re waiting by the elevator when a woman approaches her, clearly emotional: “Paula, I just want to say it’s been a pleasure working with you and having you at the company. I know you’re not leaving tomorrow, but I just really wanted to say.” It’s a poignant moment and I feel a bit intrusive standing by, but Paula thanks her and handles it smoothly. We get back to her office on the top floor and settle down in a conference room to chat.​

Katherine: For somebody who’s not familiar with Quintiles how would you briefly describe what the company does?

Paula: Quintiles is a biopharmaceutical services organization, and the very simple way to put it is we are a pharmaceutical company without owning the products. We own the services that will develop products, and we have the services to help commercialize the products, but Biopharma owns the products.​

So what’s your role in the company?

I’m the president of clinical development, which is where Quintiles started in 1982. Of our 4 billion dollars, about 3 billion of it is in the clinical development arena, and I oversee it.​

That’s a big responsibility!

It's a little crazy!​

So you’ve been with the company from quite early on haven’t you?

I was employee #23 in 1985 and now in 2015 we have 33,000 employees globally.​

You started with Quintiles as an undergraduate, didn’t you?

I did! It was a summer internship at the end of my junior year in college and they asked me to stay on part time through my senior year. I started full time in 1986, although I went back to school part time while working to get a masters, both degrees in biostatistics.​

So when you started as an undergraduate did you have any idea how successful Quintiles would become?

No! It was a summer internship, and I had been trying to get on with Burroughs Wellcome, which was a very well known biomedical research company in Research Triangle Park, but I was told that you had to be a relative of someone to get an internship there and I was referred by a friend to this company that had just started 3 years before.​

So when did you realize where Quintiles was going and how your career would be involved in that?

I got a hint that it would grow in 1987, really just 2 years later, when they opened their second office in London, England. I went to help set up the London office, and then in 1990 helped set up a California office, and in 1994 you really knew, the company went public. So it was just 2 years before I realized, “Wow, this company is going to do things! Its not just a North Carolina based little consulting company, it has big plans.”​

So when did your big plans come into the picture? You’re obviously a very high-powered executive now; did you always know that was something you wanted to do? Or did it just sort of evolve, since you were involved in the company quite early on?

It just evolved. I’d say when I was in my 20s it was just about getting a job, and then I think when I got back from California and I came back here and got married, I realized, this isn’t just a job, this is a career. I’d done a little bit of all these different pieces, at that point for the last 6 years, and so then it was, “Ok, I have to strategize” and figure out the right plan for me, given my education, age and experience.​

So you mentioned you got married and everything got real. Family life is obviously very important to you as well. How did you manage to balance everything? It seems like you manage to do both at a crazily intense level?

When I got married, I didn’t know if I was going to have children, because I really did like my career. I had a lot of discussions with Greg, my husband, because we were dating through some of my growth, and in ’91 when we got married, he had just started law school. I ended up making my next career move and took on a role called Project Management, but then when I got to 30, it was kind of now or never, and we decided. The agreement was that once he finished law school, he could join a big corporate firm and I would take more of an active role with the children, or I could push my career forward and let him take more of an active role with the children. So we made that decision together that he would work for himself and not with a firm. I think its worked out well, because you know if I had been at home with the kids, I don’t know if they would have turned out as well as they did! He’s very patient, and I’m not so patient. We balance one another – everyone says we’re complete opposites, and we are – so I think I would have driven my kids crazy, because I’m a control freak. I know that about myself, so working in a corporate environment was perfect, you need to control things. It was kind of the best of both worlds.

I never felt like I was an expert in anything, but I knew a lot of things, and I had a lot of common sense, so it was just learning as much as I could from serving our customers."

So you think being a control freak, or paying attention to detail is part of what’s made you successful is part of what’s made you successful here.

Yeah.​

Are there any other things that you would say have played a large role in the success you’ve had?

Well, I always felt like I was a jack of all trades – someone recently told me to start saying “Jill of all trades,” since you know the whole women’s issues. I never felt like I was an expert in anything, but I knew a lot of things, and I had a lot of common sense, so it was just learning as much as I could from serving our customers. I wasn’t a PhD, I wasn’t an MD – I had to be a person who knew a lot of things, so people would need me.​

So it sounds like you’re really emphasizing competency. Feminist principles generally hold that men and women are capable of performing jobs equally; however, men and women clearly tend toward separate families of traits and certain jobs require a different combination of these traits. Does that mean certain jobs should more often be held by a man or woman?

No, I disagree! It’s a balance. I mean it’s like Greg and I, we’re very different people, but together, we make a great couple. And I think in business, when its all men, you don’t have that other voice balancing the discussion. Men and women look at things differently, and I think every human being, whether you’re a man or a woman, just brings different attributes. Really it’s about building the right team, seeing who you can pull. Who’s got the technology mind? Who’s got the soft skills, of dealing with people? You need all of that in a business because you’re dealing with people, process, and technology. You’re never going to find all of that in one person, or in 5 people who are alike, so you need to work off that principle – a little bit whether you’re a man or a woman, but I do think that women tend to be better at multi-tasking, and women tend to feel more than men do.​

So I guess the follow up to that is although you need all of those attributes in the team, if management particularly requires multi-tasking and women are usually better at multi-tasking, does it make sense to use more female leaders?

I think that different types of people and both men and women can be extremely good leaders, but there is no leader that isn’t surrounded by good people. Every good leader will say that their key to success is the people they surround themselves with, so the key attribute is knowing who those people are and then also, making the hard decisions, when you may have thought someone was the right person, but they’re not bringing that skill set to the table. And I would say that’s something I have not done as quickly as I should have, because I like people and I want to think that no one comes to work to do a bad job. I always keep trying to help them be better at what they do, and sometimes I’ve probably waited too long with the people who directly support me, and that’s when I’ve struggled, when the people around me weren’t giving me what I needed. I’m only one person, and I’m not going to have it all, but being a leader is making sure you know what kind of people you need around you to be successful in that business.​

So the most important attribute in a leader isn’t the multi-tasking or any one of those skills, it’s knowing how to choose a team.

Mh-mhmm.​

I’ve heard that you’re planning to leave Quintiles. What’s made you decide to move on with your career?

Well, you know, it’s multifaceted. When I hit 25 years, I started thinking, “Ok, if I stay here much longer, I’m never going to get a job anywhere else.” Because they’re going to think you can only do this one thing. I’ve done a lot of different jobs within Quintiles, but the company grew from 50 million to 4 billion, so I’ve always been in a growth company where that was possible. It’s still growing, but… I’d say for the last 3-5 years, I’ve tried to evaluate if I’m going to leave and if I want another career after this, now is the time. I’ve always wanted to leave on a high and the company is doing very well. I also knew I had to be out of this role by the end of the year, as I’ve been in it for 5 years and it’s a bit of a burnout role. It was time for it to get some new blood, and some new viewpoints as well. I don’t want to say that I’m stale, but I think anybody needs a bit of a kick-start once in a while, and I really didn’t have anywhere to go when I was reporting to the CEO. We talked about some other roles, but they would have been sideways. Right now, my son is in high school, my daughter is in college, and I feel like it’s a good time for me to take a break – clear my brain. There was a wonderful article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about how some of the best athletes, like Michael Jordan, took a break! And when they came back, they were stronger than they had been. And I feel like after 30 years, I need to take a break. In 2 years, I can reevaluate. I’ll be 53 years old, so I’ll have another 5-10 year run in me left if I want to do that. I have the fortune, figuratively and I guess literally, to be able to step away now and be fine financially. So I’m not nervous about that, it’s just doing what’s going to make me happy, and right now, I don’t know. So come January 2, I’m going to take a break for a few months and kind of reflect and see what my next is.

There was a wonderful article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about how some of the best athletes, like Michael Jordan, took a break! And when they came back, they were stronger than they had been. And I feel like after 30 years, I need to take a break."

Do you have any plans for your break yet?

Well, Greg says that I must clean out all the closets in the house and funnily enough, I am looking forward to it. ​

​Stay tuned for the continuation of this interview, next Tuesday morning!